Frog Blog ~ Easy Food & Wine Pairings

There are several ways to approach food and wine pairing. One way is to match flavours that share characteristics such as mushrooms and beef ~ let’s call it earthiness. This approach is called congruent, whereby shared characteristics, in our example earthiness, combine and intensify. Another approach is called complementary. Here there are few shared characteristics and the purpose is to create balance by counteracting conflicting flavours. An example would be the fruitiness of a Riesling with a rich, spicy dish.

It’s always a good idea to ask the advice of a sommelier at a restaurant. But pairing food and wine at home can be relatively easy if you keep some simple tips in mind.

Before we tackle the tips, here is some background information.

Experts say that the human mouth can distinguish the following 5 flavours:

• salty
• sour
• sweet
• bitter
• umami (savoury, like soy sauce)

So how does someone taste black currants in a cabernet sauvignon?

Well, with the help of our noses, people can pick out many other flavours. Our noses detect an incredible number of flavours and aromas (apparently one trillion according to recent studies).

That said, our mouths can also distinguish: fat/creaminess, fullness/body, spiciness, coolness (as in menthol), metallicity, fizziness (CO2, as in sparking beverages) due to the fact that our sense of touch is involved when tasting.

Now back to food and wine pairing tips.

Keep the following in mind and you cannot go wrong:

• Pair regional with regional, for example boeuf bourguignon with a Pinot Noir from Bourgogne, France.
• Pair red wine with roasted, braised and grilled meats.
• Pair white wine (or high acid, light red wines, like Gamay) with fish. (Fish oils combined with red wines can leave a metallic taste in your mouth.)
• Pair spicy foods with lower alcohol (11%-12% abv) sweeter wines.
• Pair fats with tannins (e.g., burgers + tannic red wines).
• Pair Cabernet Franc or Chianti (Sangiovese) with vegetarian fare, especially if tomatoes are involved.
• Pair wine to the sauce, for example, cream sauces with high acid white wines, brown sauces with red wines.

Finally, here is a chart that we find helpful, simply partner column A + B:

A: Wine Characteristic	B: Food Characteristic	Why
Acid	Acid	Acid likes acid, so a tangy white wine like Sauvignon Blanc will compliment a green salad with vinaigrette. If the wine has less acidity than the food, it will taste flat/flabby.
Acid	Fatty and sweet foods	Think how crisp, dry white wine will cleanse your palate of butter sauce or a glass of sparking wine cut through cheesecake.
Alcohol	Fats	Higher alcohol wines (14%+) will cut through fat or can balance a sweet dish
Tannin	Fatty and sweet foods	A classic pairing is steak and tannic red wine. The bitterness of tannin will also balance sweet foods.
Sweet	Salty foods	Pair an off-dry wine such as Riesling with Asian food or potato chips.
Sweet, salty	Bitter foods	A dry Sherry such as Manzanilla from Sanlúcar de Barrameda has a touch of saltiness which would pair well with bitter foods or try wines with some residual sugar (10-18 g/L), but avoid tannic wines that would amplify the bitterness.

Leave us a comment about your favourite pairings with Frogpond Farm Organic wines!